Address books or contact information list, in an electronic form, are databases that are used for storing entries that are now colloquially known as “contacts”. Due to the ever growing list of capabilities of today's computer devices (such as desktop computers, laptops, smartphones and the like), the information stored in contact entries has also grown such that individual entries now may include without limitation: (1) a name; (2) a picture associated with the name; (3) various phone number(s) (i.e., home, work, wireless, etc.); (4) one or more email addresses (both personal and work-related); (5) fax number(s); (6) user name(s) associated with various services (i.e. instant messaging applications, social networks, etc.); and (7) various other related information associated with a user (i.e., birthdays, names of related family members, anniversary dates, etc.).
In addition to the large amount of information now stored within individual contact entries associated with a user's contact information list, the number of contacts stored in the user's contact information list has also grown such that the navigation of the contacts may be difficult and time consuming. The large number of stored contacts results from a number of factors, including the intermingling of less frequently used contact entries among contact entries that are more commonly used. Furthermore, because contact entries are now frequently entered and shared during an initial meeting with a personal acquaintance or business associate (whether manually or electronically), these names tend to become forgotten by the user, making it difficult to later recall the name of that particular acquaintance or business associate.
Various methods and apparatus exist in the prior art for managing a user's contact information list entries. In one example, contact information list entries may be organized according to various user-defined groupings. However, these various groupings must be manually assembled by the user, and therefore have many of the same limitations of prior art address books and contact lists as discussed above.
Other common contact information list implementations, such as the contact information list available in many existing smartphones, also include a search function which permits a user to navigate his or her contact information list by entering information associated with an entry (i.e., a contact entry's first or last name). However, the ability to locate specific contact information under this model is again predicated on the user's ability to accurately recall specific information about that entry.
Many of today's contact information lists in wireless communication devices or smartphones allow a user to arrange contacts by arranging contacts in special lists. For example, a user can have contacts arranged by those contacts which have been most recently dialed, from which the user has most recently received or most recently missed a call, etc., each sorted by date (and often time). However, these special lists are call-oriented, and thus they arrange contacts by information related to calls to the contacts that have taken place (or were supposed to be taking place), and are therefore predicated on either: (1) frequency of communication with a particular contact entry; or (2) proximity in time between a prior communication or an attempted communication.